


7:00am Wake up call

by dstrider (articulateSeer)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Black Romance, Caliginous Romance | Kismesis, Collegestuck, Dave Strider/Karkat Vantas Black Romance, Hair-pulling, M/M, Platonic Cuddling, Platonic Male/Male Relationships, Rough Kissing, Secret Relationship, Surprise Kissing, idfk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-17
Updated: 2014-07-17
Packaged: 2018-02-09 07:30:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,228
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1974195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/articulateSeer/pseuds/dstrider
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave and John are ready to start a new day at college - but hiding a relationship from your platonic soulmate is always difficult when sharing a dorm room. Especially if it's with the angriest troll to ever walk the earth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	7:00am Wake up call

Cold hands clamped Dave's sides, despite the heated hair beneath the duvet. Piano players fingers clutching his skin, fingertips soft and soothing, stroking a sleepy rhythm onto his stomach - but it was still as cold as the heart that beats inside of The Ice Queen's frosty chest. Trying to ignore it, Dave snuggled back down into the clothy pillow, breathing in the smell of dry sweat, aftershave and very faint John.

But then the goddamn alarm went off.

The soothing beat stopped, and Dave groaned loudly, bringing John back up with him from the hazy depths of dreamland. He rolled onto his back, inching his eyelids open, sleep crusting the corners; an arm draped across him to turn off the godforsaken alarm clock. 7:00am. Terrible.

Beside him, John had sat up, once again sleeping in Dave's bed for no apparent reason. But Dave didn't complain. It was comforting having someone to sleep beside and cuddle in the middle of the night. Especially if that person was Egbert.

After Sburb, things were still shaky. Five years of not being a part of the world can mess a person up - being Dave, it wasn't expected that he'd be one of the ones to fall apart. He imagined he'd be the one to pick up the pieces, after seeing so many dead versions of himself, nothing was all that bad in comparison. Until the nightmares started. At first, it was short night terrors, Dave waking up in a cold sweat, slightly shaken but otherwise okay. Eventually, it got worse, and John was forced to intervene. He'd simply sat beside Dave the first night, but eventually that wasn't enough - so they'd spooned shamefully. The nightmares had stopped long ago, but it was still nice that John cared.

Dave wasn't sure how the others had taken it, but so far it was only John who knew about his troubling dreams.

"Daaave..." John yawned, his body eagling as he took his morning stretch. "Classes don't start until 9am - why do you need to get up so early?" 

Dave shook his head, bed hair sticking out in odd shapes. It was the same every morning, John would complain, and Dave would TRY to ignore him.

He swung his legs out of the bed, crossing the slightly messy room to the window. It wasn't dark enough that he couldn't see, but opening the curtains would at least be nice. Even if it meant John would close them again to go back to bed.

"I gotta shower. Your pungent scent of dork has rubbed off on me - can't have people questioning the nature of our friendship, John."

John blinked, clearly startled. He stood up, crossing his arms and stepping around Dave's bed to stand in the center of the room. "I do not," he started, glaring lasers into Dave, "smell like dork. And what's that supposed to mean? This is entirely platonic!"

"Whatever, Mr.'I am not a homosexual'," Dave scoffed, shoving past a stubborn John and zipping into the en-suite.

John followed him, walking right into the closed door. He banged on it once before giving up. "I'm straight!" He groaned into the wood. Of course, evidence would show that maybe, he wasn't ENTIRELY straight as a rod. But he was! Totally was! Evidence was incorrect.

"As a delicious, cream-filled donut." Came Dave's muffled reply, the running water of a shower already garbling his words.

John was used to Dave's rambling and odd statements. It was just Dave; you either loved him or hated him. Though, sometimes it got a little awkward if Dave had said something particularly... weird. But it was fine!

John glanced at the clock again; it had just gone 7:15am, and he'd decided that perhaps there was no point in going back to bed now. H'd just find it harder to wake up later on. Maybe if he got coffee, he wouldn't feel so run-down?

John had made up his mind. With the faint singing of Dave in the background, John set to getting dressed. The only problem with having one bathroom was privacy. If one person was showering, it was always a risk to get dressed in the room. Though so far no awkward nude-catching had happened.

He'd gone with a simple blue t-shirt and jeans, it didn't look like it was going to rain at all, and John loved that shirt. It reminded him of Sburb - the good part when no one he knew was dead.

Dave's voice rose to a deafening crescendo - so John absconded. If there was anything worse than death, it was Dave's singing.

He knew he couldn't sing. That's why he rapped. That and the fact his rapping was fucking off the charters. But rapping in the shower just sounded stupid, and Dave knew the difference between something being idiotic and goddamn awesome. Obviously.

He turned off the shower, watched the last droplets fall onto his feet and stepped out, pulling a towel from the rack as he did so. The mirrors were steamed up, but he quickly swiped a hand across the glass, revealing his own face. 

He was no longer the young boy in Sburb, but was a visibly changed 18 year old going to college. Granted, it was funded entirely by the government and full of people he spent three years of turmoil with - but it was college, and he was happy with that. He studied what he loved and maybe, just maybe, it would take him somewhere.

But for now he was just a teenager, and teenagers in college had better things to do than study.

Just as he was finishing off drying his hair, a knock sounded at the door. Dave had a feeling he knew who it was, but just to be sure, he pulled on a pair of jeans and a shirt - can't answer the door naked, right?

Also his aviators. Can't forget those.

Dave pulled open the door, and almost grinned to himself when his suspicions were confirmed.

Karkat stood against the door frame, the same death-stare Dave had endured for three years in a dusty old space rock. He'd filled out - now 8 sweeps of hard-boiled troll. He was still considered small and skinny, but even the blindest could see that Karkat was no longer just an angry kitten; Dave was taller than him now, but he still gave the impression of a tiny wolverine in an oversized sweater.

Karkat's yellow eyes narrowed, already filling with a reddish tinge around the iris'. It just made him look more intense. He pushed himself off of the wood, toward Dave.

"What brings you to casa del-"

"Shut the fuck up," Karkat sighed, rolling his eyes dramatically. "You do this every time. It's getting old - actually, it was old the first time, now it's fucking fossilized."

Dave stepped back, allowing Karkat access into the room. He noticeably frowned at the mess, and opened his mouth to complain about it, but Dave hushed him with a single finger to the mouth. Risky move, considering how sharp Karkat's teeth were. He slapped him away, pulling Dave toward him in the process.

There was a moment of silence, before Dave leaned down, claiming Karkat's mouth; Karkat was already reaching up to wound his hands around Dave's neck. It was a lot less violent than usual; normally there was biting and a little bit of scratching. Most of which from the troll side. He tasted like coffee and cinnamon; Dave like toothpaste. Not the best combination, but right then nether of them cared.

They backed furthur into the room, Dave's hands sliding around Karkat's waist, pinning him to his body as if he never wanted him to leave. Which he didn't - Karkat was entertaining and spontaneous. Karkat's fingers scrunched in on Dave's collar, one hand sliding around to grab a handful of his hair. He tugged lightly, but other than that it was soft and slow.

Dave could feel Karkat melting into him, the kiss deepening into something less paced and more passionate. It never mattered WHY Karkat had turned up, it always ended up the same way.

Karkat pushed Dave into the wall abruptly, the wind almost knocked out of him as the hard concrete smashed into his back.

"Damn, Karkat. It's not even 8:00am and you're already trying to break my goddamn back. Feeling especially murderous today?"

"Fuck off," Karkat hissed, leaning into Dave's neck to gnaw on his ear. It seemed like something he liked. "You -"

Karkat paused, tearing himself away from from Dave. His pupils were blown, hair wild and feral. "Where's John?" he asked, voice suspiciously quiet. 

He didn't wait for an answer, zipping past Dave and into the bathroom without a heads up. A few seconds had passed before John exploded into the room, two coffees in his hands. He'd clearly burned himself somehow - dumbass forgot that coffee was hot.

"Dave! Dave, Dave, Dave! Take your fucking coffee!" John thrust the polystyrene cup at Dave, the liquid spilling slightly over the edge onto his fingers.

It was hot.

"Wait, hold mine too, I gotta pee."

"No! Wait, uh," Dave plonked the coffee onto a nightstand, moving to block John's access to the bathroom door. "Don't go in there."

"Why?" John raised an eyebrow, his eyes already peeping over Dave's shoulder at the door. "What did you do?"

Dave stood up straight, his chin rising with the action. "I got real bad food poisoning. It's not pretty, man - if you went in there I guarantee you'd need emotional therapy. It's like a fucking nuclear bomb went off in there, Chernobyl Diaries? More like the fucking Chernobyl Diarrhea. Yeah, no, don't go in there. Could be fatal. Just don't." Suddenly he was thankful his glasses hid the embarrassment on his face.

John was silent for what felt like twenty long minutes before he finally turned away from Dave, his eyebrows premanently beneath his hairline. "...Yeeeah. Suddenly I don't need to go."

Dave let out a silent breath of air; he could almost hear Karkat groaning in horror at him from the bathroom. Thankfully, It wasn't long before John had resumed his lovable coffee drinking whereabouts, hopefully forgetting entirely about the bathroom and Dave's apparent chronic 'diarrhea'.

He'd never hear the end of that one.

From the nightstand, Dave's phone pinged, an incoming message fired at his inbox. He snatched i it up before John had got to it, tapping the Pesterchum icon. It was Karkat, probably ranting about how steamy the bathroom is, or how the towels needed washed. 

\-- carcinoGeneticist [CG] began trolling turntechGodhead [TG] \--

CG: GET HIM THE FUCK OUT

CG: I SWEAR ON MY OWN PATHETIC LIFE THAT IF YOU DONT GET ME OUT OF HERE ILL TEAR YOUR FUCKING SKIN OFF WITH MY TEETH

TG: kinky

TG: but nah

CG: LISTEN YOU SHIT WHIFFING BULGE STAIN

CG: I WILL PERSONALLY END YOUR STUPID ASS LIFE WITH MY BARE HANDS

CG: GET EGBERT OUT OF THAT ROOM OR SO HELP ME THIS WILL BE THE LAST FORM OF CONTACT YOU WILL EVER FUCKING HAVE WITH ANYONE

CG: ARE WE UNDER FUCKING STOOD

TG: yeah yeah i get it

TG: one sec

CG: OH SURE

CG: ILL WAIT A ''SEC''

Dave cut a glance towards John, who was already finished with his coffee - the coffee which was apparently scorching hot ten seconds ago. He was now sat cross-legged on his bed, laptop already propped open. He still hadn't brushed his hair from getting up, day-old stubble lining his jaw. Although on John it just made him look like a middle-aged dad with a teaching career, glasses perched on the end of his nose; on anyone else it would class them as a jobless loser. Add a tank top and you've got a class-A douche.

"John," Dave said. He raised his head from the screen, moony morning facial expression still a thing.

"Hm?"

"Jade said Jake was looking for you - something about an assignment. You should probably go look for him. Right now," Classic.

Dave's phone buzzed in his hand.

CG: THATS YOUR IDEA

CG: HE WONT FALL FOR THAT

"Assignment - oh. Wait, why didn't he just -"

"Lost his phone. Anyway, I think you should go do that thing he wants you to do."

John shut his laptop, suspiciously eyeing Dave. Of course, he could tell nothing from his face, but he still looked on in the hopes that even a flicker of emotion, or SOMETHING, would tell him if it was a joke or not.

"...Okay. If you're -"

"Jake isn't gonna wait for you forever. Shoo."

One bout of loud sighing later and John had left, taking his bag and his laptop with him. It didn't look like he was coming back before classes started.

Karkat burst into the main room like a small hurricane, swiftly grabbing a stray shoe and lobbing it at Dave in the space of two seconds. He made a frustrated noise that was somewhere between a sigh and a hissing screech, Dave couldn't help but crack a smile.

"Hello to you too."

"Whatever. I'm going back to my own room."

Karkat shoved his way past Dave, who had stood to see him out. The troll whirlwinded past him and through the doorway faster than he could blink; Dave walked out into the hall, wiggling his fingers in Karkat's general wake.

"Toodles."

**Author's Note:**

> psssht this was from a different collegestuck
> 
> i am destined to never be able to write chapter fics ugh
> 
> tumblr ==> http://kannytown.tumblr.com
> 
> eue


End file.
